


Never say that I was false of heart

by STILL_not_ginger



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dark Past, F/M, Feels, Guilt, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Internal Conflict, Internal Monologue, Lies, Post-Episode: s08e12 Death in Heaven, Pre-Episode: 2014 Xmas Last Christmas-ish-sorta, References to Depression, Survivor Guilt, Truth, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 13:44:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16388804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/STILL_not_ginger/pseuds/STILL_not_ginger
Summary: Clara reflects on the decisions that led her to be apart from the Doctor.Post Death in Heaven.





	Never say that I was false of heart

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, lovelies! Here is a little bit of a darker regretful Clara than the typical playful control freak. I feel that, based on her reaction to seeing the Doctor again in Last Christmas, this is a fairly accurate representation of the thoughts that went through her head during their separation. It seems wrong to say "Enjoy!" when she is feeling slightly sorry for herself but I hope you like this little short anyway.

 “What is the price of a lie?”, Clara wondered one early morning as she sipped at her hazelnut coffee. A clean, guilt-free conscience, she enumerated first and foremost. But, then again, she had already anticipated that the creeping sense that she’d betrayed him would come for her under the cover of night while she laid awake in bed. And, in turn it had, with its icy tendrils wrapping around her heart and squeezing. But, she was prepared for it, she told herself. She accepted it.

 And so, she rationalized that surely any person in their right mind would feel badly for lying to their best friend. There was nothing really special about her situation. Aside from the fact that her best friend happened to be a centuries-old-time-traveling-alien from Gallifrey who dons a new face every once in a long while.

She saw no need to cloud the issue with mere contextual details.

 She had smiled as she had lied to his face and it felt wrong even though she knew it was the right thing to do. She’d lied to spare him from the hurt and the guilt over Danny’s death that she felt weighing down heavily upon her every day. She’d lied to spare him the anchor that was his “duty of care” for her. But, most of all, she’d lied just to see him happy. Because Gallifrey was for Gallifreyans and not for human, Blackpudlian English Teachers. And because, really, it was high time for her to admit to herself that she was selfish and to try putting others first for a change. Danny’s selfless sacrifice was her wake-up call and she had ought to do her best to honor his memory properly.

 But what else had her lie cost her, in the end? Her sanity? No, she was pretty sure she still had her wits about her. Well-enough to worry that maybe she was obsessing, anyway. Well-enough to admit that, yes, she was obsessing. But, not quite well-enough to stop her doing so.

 In spite of all that had happened and all, as far as she considered things, that she had done, much still remained the same. She had kept her job at Coal Hill with the disruptive influence that could never be suppressed, she’d kept her flat with the kitchen faucet that dripped, and she’d kept to her routine most of all. Or what had become of her routine, that is. 

 The same annoying alarm clock shrieking in her ear every morning, the same shower in which the feeble water pressure never did her hair washing regimen any favors, the same lukewarm coffee that had sat in the pot just a little too long by the time she had gotten to it.

 She ticked off all the boxes in her mind that she felt she still possessed. A mental inventory of things she'd managed not to lose. She tucked away all of her accomplishments for safe keeping. All the things that nothing and no one could ever take from her. The wonders she’d seen, the planets she’d helped save, the children she’d educated.

Pity those she loved never quite made it onto that list.

 In the deepest corner of her heart she kept a scrapbook of those who’d left her behind. Her mother who she had loved so dearly and yet lost so early on. Danny, sweet Danny, with his smile and his ever-present eagerness to see her happy. She stamped down that train of thought like she would a spider caught crawling in her bedroom.

 “What is the price of a lie?”, she asked herself again even as Santa asked her whether or not she’d honestly grown out of believing in fairy tales, and the TARDIS materialized itself on her rooftop.

 “What does a lie cost you?”, she asked as the Doctor confessed to her he had never found Gallifrey and admitted that he’d lied so that she would stay with Danny.

 And then it dawned on her why it was that a lie was so expensive; what made it cost you so much, as he begged her not even to argue with him and she slipped her hand into his.

Because a lie is like a TARDIS or a person. It’s bigger on the inside.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic is taken from William Shakespeare's Sonnet 109 which you should definitely look at if you haven't already heard of this one before. It is about a woman who is unfaithful to a young man and expresses her love for him and her regret. The words just really inspired me to write this little short because I thought it suited them so well.
> 
> This fic is a gift for UniverseOnHerShoulders who is a lovely and much better writer than myself. I aspire to command my words that easily but, alas, I am but a mortal. Please do check out her work. It is masterfully done.


End file.
